Coffee
by Alexandra Thyme
Summary: Au Sleeping Warrior 'fic. Mulan, Aurora and Phillip are caught up in Regina's curse. This 'fic follows their lives in Storybrooke, and we get flashbacks from their previous lives in FTL.
1. Chapter 1

_Prompt:_  
_Aurora, Phillip and Mulan were also caught up in the Curse. Rose is a bartender, Josh is a mechanic, and Maggie works in public sanitation. Maggie always goes to the bar after work with Josh as buddies, and Rose, who always has her eye on Maggie, gets hit on and subsequently asked out by Josh._

Rose sighed as she clocked in for her shift. Her heart fluttered a little in her chest as she thought of tonight. Maggie would come after work, same as always, but tonight Rose would ask her to have coffee tomorrow at Granny's. Rose blushed as she thought of Maggie's brown eyes, always stone hard when she regarded anyone else, but melted chocolate when she would glance at Rose.

For months now—actually, for as long as Rose could remember—Maggie had shown up at The Rabbit Hole, night after night after night. She was a quiet drunk, when she managed to drink enough, but she was the silent type anyway. To earn a smile from her was quite difficult. Up until recently, Maggie had only ever given her goofy friend Josh a reluctant smile once in a while when he managed to do something really moronic in public. But then, Maggie had started giving smiles to Rose. Smiles that weren't reluctant. They were small, but always sincere. And they always melted Rose to her very core.

Leroy came through the door as soon as she flipped on the Open sign.

"Hello," she said courteously. "How are you today, Leroy?"

He grumbled. "'M fine," and meandered over to his dark corner. She would bring him the usual beer and he would awkwardly hand over a five dollar bill. That's how it always went.

It was about half an hour after Leroy arrived that the familiar sound of Josh's voice rang through the air merrily along with the bell tingling on the door.

"Shots on me!" he said, approaching the bar with a grin and slapping down some money. Behind him followed Maggie, looking oddly nice despite her hair still up in work ponytail. Rose thought it was probably because she didn't come to the bar in her work clothes like Josh did. Maggie's neat leather jacket over a white tank top looked a lot better than Josh's stained tee under a very ratty plaid flannel shirt.

Maggie rolled her eyes at Josh as she sat cautiously next to him, perching on a stool much more gracefully than he was.

"He's determined to get drunk as hell tonight," she warned Rose with a small smile. Rose felt her heart start to thrum beneath her synthetic-silk, lilac blouse as she poured two shots of their usual tequila and set them on the bar.

"Shot game?" she asked smiling back at Maggie.

Josh answered. "Of course! Every time her team makes a shot, I take a shot, and vice versa. Mind turning the game on?"

Rose nodded, her smile still there, and she picked up the remote, changing the channel on the TV overhead from a soap opera to a basketball game.

"You do know that after a few shots I have to kick you out, though?" she reminded the two of them. Josh nodded and winked at her.

"I can hold my liquor, Rose. It's this one you have to worry about," he laughed conspiratorially as he poked Maggie's shoulder. She gave him a glare of death.

"Do you want me to break your hand? Don't touch me."

He held his hands up in surrender. "Geez Maggie, no wonder you're still single."

She tilted her head. "I could just kill you and get it over with."

Josh took a shot and shook his head from the sting of the tequila. "No thanks," he set the shot glass on the counter and looked up at the TV.

Rose smiled to herself as she poured an unasked for beer into a glass and then set it in front of Maggie, who looked momentarily surprised, then smiled at her.

"Thanks. How'd—"

Rose blushed. "You always order one while he does his shot games." She was surprised to see that it was Maggie's turn to turn a little red. Rose didn't add that she had noticed that Maggie would thoughtfully nurse the one beer all night.

Josh looked down momentarily. "Want me to buy that one for you Mags?"

Rose blurted, "Oh, don't worry, this one's on the house," and blushed, turning around and making it look like she was organizing some drinks on the wall behind her.

"Thank you," came Maggie's voice, sounding thoughtful.

"Geez, where's mine?" complained Josh.

Maggie punched his arm. "There. For free. Next time I punch you, it'll be your face, and I'll charge you five bucks."

He scowled and rubbed his shoulder.

Josh wasn't able to complete his game. By halftime he was perfectly drunk, laughing way too much at everything and flirting atrociously with Rose.

"You know, you are so pretty," he slurred, giving her a grin.

"And you are drunk," she said with a small smile. "Why don't we talk about this when you're not so out of it?"

"I'd really like it if we could date, Rose," he said, trying to sound serious, but still looking super goofy.

Rose saw Maggie stiffen. Stoic Maggie, staring at the TV intensely, trying not to give anything away. But Rose knew Maggie well, and she noticed Maggie's demeanor shift. She smiled and patted Josh's arm.

"You're a great guy, Josh. But you're a drunk. A funny and cute drunk, but a drunk. I don't date guys who get flat-out drunk every night after work. It makes for a poor relationship."

His face fell. "Aw, come on, Rose."

Maggie stood up from the bar suddenly, her beer only half-gone. She grasped Josh by the arm and helped him off of his stool.

"You should quit while you're ahead, buddy. I'll take you home."

While Maggie was steadying Josh and putting his arm around her neck, Rose looked desperately around for some way to stall Maggie. She needed to take the plunge tonight! If not now, then she might not ever do it! She spotted Maggie's keys on the counter and slyly took them, hiding them beneath the counter.

Maggie gave Rose a smile. "See you later. Thanks for the free beer; I'll have to pay you back sometime."

Rose nodded, her dark auburn-ish curls bouncing a little. "I'd like that," she said, blushing as her smile widened. Maggie nodded back and helped Josh out of the bar.

As soon as the door jingled their departure, Rose took the keys from beneath the counter, leaned over the bar, and dropped them beneath the stool where Maggie had been sitting.

It took about five minutes before Maggie came back inside, her eyes fixed on the floor beneath bar counter.

"Lose something?" asked Rose innocently as Maggie approached. Maggie nodded, distracted as her eyes searched the floor. Then she bent over and came back up, her keys between her fingers.

"Must have knocked them off the bar when I was helping that idiot," she said with a small smile at Rose, who had a hopeful look on her face. Maggie clasped the keys tight. "Well, goodbye again." She turned, but Rose's reached right over the counter and grasped the edge of Maggie's jacket in her desperate fingers.

"Maggie, wait," she said, letting go. There was a look of immense surprise on Maggie's face, but she stopped, turned, and walked right up to the counter, where Rose was breathing visibly harder than was normal.

Rose took a breath. "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind getting coffee with me tomorrow. It's my day off." Her clear blue eyes looked hopefully into Maggie's.

Maggie smiled. "Of course. I'd love that."


	2. Chapter 2

Mulan sat on the mossy, damp log, visibly worn out as Phillip finished tying his white palomino Strawberry to the branch of a close tree where Mulan had already tied up her chestnut stallion Khan.

"We're getting close," he said, sitting down across from her on a large stone. The fire Mulan had just lit was just starting to crackle as he put his hands near it.

"You say that every night. And every day of travel it seems we get no closer," she remarked, not bitterly. "Are you sure that your princess's castle is even still standing?"

Phillip's face grew clouded. "All I can do is hope that is the case."

Mulan shook her head. "Hope. Sometimes hope is misguided. We could be on a quest to find nothing there."

"So what if we were?" he asked honestly. "I have to know what has happened to Aurora. If that means finding nothing but a ruin and her bones inside, well…" he trailed off, sickening himself with the thought that Aurora could be dead and decomposed inside stone ruins.

Mulan shook her head, but didn't say anything.

Phillip's face looked drawn in the dancing light of the flames as he peered into its depths.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," said Mulan quietly. He looked up, and nodded, turning so that he wasn't staring into the fire.

"You're right. I can't put us in danger by getting distracted. I'm sorry." He wiped his face and sighed. "Every day this journey weighs more heavily upon me."

"Why don't you take your rest first then?" said Mulan. She stood up, gazing into the blackness of the forest around them. "I can take the first watch of the night."

Phillip paused, then nodded. "Sure. Good idea." He got up and went over to Strawberry, pulling a rolled mat and blanket off of the saddle. Then he paused, staring at the saddle bags. "I just can't help thinking that even when I do wake her up, something horrible is going to happen."

Mulan rolled her eyes. "You're just being paranoid."

A stick snapped nearby and they both stiffened. Mulan drew her sword, facing the forest.

"What was—"

"Shh!" Mulan gestured violently.

"Now who's being paranoid?" he asked, and Mulan shushed him furiously a second time. He smiled behind his hand as she stared into the darkness, looking around, trying to hear anything else.

After a moment, she relaxed a very little bit, turning to him.

"Do you have a death wish? Remember the ogres? We must be silent. Especially you," she said pointedly, sheathing her sword and sitting down on the log, her back to the fire.

He laughed. "Especially me? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean you talk too much."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you jealous of a woman you haven't even met?"

She twisted around on the log to glare at him. "No."

"I think you are, since Aurora is all I talk about."

She was growing visibly frustrated. "I couldn't care less that you have a True Love and that we are going to rescue her. What I _do_ care about is you talking non-stop just to hear your own voice!" She hissed angrily.

She heard him chuckling to himself as he shook out his bedroll. It took several minutes, but he soon fell asleep, his breathing accented with a small snore.

Mulan shook her head, still agitated. She was not the type to get jealous, and even if she were, it would never be over this Aurora she now knew so much about. Phillip's habit of talking incessantly had given her all the information on the princess that Phillip himself knew. Sometimes, Mulan thought to herself, she felt like she too had grown up with and loved Aurora. But she knew that was silly and foolish.

The next day they broke through the edge of the forest and saw an expanding grassland before them. Several miles away, though still visible on the horizon, was a castle, with grand mountains for its backdrop. Phillip laughed and pointed.

"Look! It's not in ruins! Come on!" He kicked Strawberry's sides eagerly and the poor horse burst into a gallop, leaving Mulan in a cloud of dust. She coughed a little, and then urged Khan to begin a trot as Phillip spurred Strawberry on. Down a long road they galloped for several hours until they reached the castle itself.

Giant thorned vines wound around the gates, and upon closer inspection, Mulan saw that these deathly things were all over the castle itself. She found herself grimly wondering if they would find a princess who had been cruelly impaled upon these giant dagger-like thorns. She dared not say it aloud, as it seemed Phillip had not come upon that conclusion himself. Instead, his face was aglow with purpose and excitement. He was hacking at the vines a little too enthusiastically. He got too close with one swing, and found himself pulling back with a gasp and a swear. One of the longer thorns had caught his forearm and there was a long gash just below his elbow.

"Damn thing," he cursed. Mulan hopped down from her saddle and began rummaging in the bags on it, looking for something to clean and bind his wound.

"We'd better hope those aren't poisoned," she said seriously, finding a cloth and some strong alcohol in a saddle bag.

"Poisoned thorns? What plant has poisoned thorns?" said Phillip. His optimism knew no bounds, especially now that he was so close to his happy ending. His grin turned into a grimace as Mulan poured out the alcohol onto his arm. He hissed in pain.

Mulan's eyes flickered up to his face to gauge his reaction before tearing the cloth into strips with her teeth. She began wrapping the wound.

"It does hurt a great deal, I will admit," he said, his smile working its way back onto his face.

She shook her head. "Yes, well, just pray it doesn't get infected."

"You're not really a cup half full kind of girl, are you?" he said, chuckling at her.

"My mentality keeps me alive. Yours makes you insane," she intoned, tying the bandage off. She handed him his sword and he weakly gripped it.

"Ah, no," he said, dropping the smile. "I can't properly hold my sword."

"As I feared," said Mulan. She looked up at the thorns threatening them. "Don't worry, I will take over the gardening." She drew her sword, and began hacking at the vines in a strategic way that helped her lop off giant thorns while at the same time opening up a place for them to pass through.

The thorny vines were absolutely everywhere. Wherever there may have been open space before, it had all been taken over. And it was not easy going. Some of the vines were as big around as Phillip's torso, some were as thick as tree trunks. The smallest one Mulan had to hack through was a little larger than her arm.

Sweat dripped down into her face and her arm grew sore. Her breathing grew heavy and labored. But she kept chopping at the vines steadily until they had worked their way into the castle, and into a large room that might have been the great hall. In the middle of the hall was a raised dais, surrounded by marble pillars that had vines wrapped around them in a thick wall of poisonous green.

"She must be at the center," breathed Phillip. Mulan rolled her shoulder, trying to ease the muscles that were screaming at her.

"Let's get this over with," she said beneath her breath. She strode across the room to the covered pillars and eyed the vines. "For Aurora," she stated, as she raised her sword.

"For Aurora!" said Prince Phillip, his eyes shining.

Despite the pain in her muscles and joints, Mulan was able to hack a human-sized hole through the vines a lot faster than she'd anticipated. She sheathed her sword and then knelt down on one knee.

"Go awaken your princess," she said, gesturing to the opening she had made. Phillip smiled gratefully at her, and then hurried up the dais steps and through the hole.

"Augh!" He let out a cry of pain, and Mulan stood up quickly, following him through to find him lying on his side, cradling his wounded arm. He was looking very pale, almost a shade of faint green. Mulan knelt by his side, taking his arm to look at it. The dressing had turned black and smelled bad.

Her eyes widened. Phillip saw her expression.

"Don't tell me—" he began, but she nodded.

"Poison." Her voice caught and she stopped speaking, letting go of his arm. "We've failed."

"No! No," said Phillip, groaning with the pain of his arm. "No, help me up. I will break the curse."

"And then what?" Mulan asked incredulously. "You die and I get to stick around and tell Aurora that her Prince lived long enough to wake her up? No! I'm not doing that! That's not fair to her, Phillip!"

"What's not fair, is she's lived so many years under this curse!" he argued, seeming to turn more pale with the effort. "Please, help me do this."

"I can't do that to her, Phillip!" Mulan pressed fingers to her temples, trying to calm her mind, trying to think of anything that could save Phillip.

He groaned. Now there was a definite shade of green to his skin.

"You're right," he said after a moment. He was panting slightly, his breathing choppy. "I couldn't kiss her right now even if you could hold me up. This poison, it's so strange…like it waited for me to reach her before it began to work…" He coughed.

Mulan's eyes were watering. She clasped him by the hand on his good arm and held it tight. He looked up, locking his gaze with hers.

"You must kiss her for me. And protect her body, now that—now that we've opened up a way for others to get in." He coughed violently again. "Swear that you will." His voice was strangled.

"I swear," said Mulan, her voice shaking.

He smiled faintly at her, and then his body relaxed and he closed his eyes and his hand in hers went limp. A sob burst from Mulan and she covered her mouth, struggling to hold back the crying that was threatening to erupt from her. She struggled to stand, using the bier that held Aurora's body to help herself up, and she kept herself from sobbing. She let a few tears fall, and then wiped furiously at her face.

"No, I will _not_ lose composure this way. Not when there is still a mission to complete," she told herself sternly, sniffing heavily. "I must do what he asked."

She straightened and saw that she was standing at Aurora's feet. They were fitted in a pair of dainty slate-colored shoes, and then she saw that the princess was dressed in a lilac-colored gown of gossamer and silk, her light brown hair framing her head in cascades of curls, two strands of small flowers lining the braid that looked like a crown gracing her head.

She was beautiful. Phillip had not embellished that part of her at all. The way her gentle eyebrows arched over her eyes, the fullness of her lips, her small nose, all of it was so capturing that Mulan found she could not take her eyes off of the princess's face. She daringly reached out and traced Aurora's cheek with a gloved finger, pulling back almost reluctantly.

"I don't see the point of kissing you. I can't break your curse," she said matter-of-factly. "It's not as if you'll notice or know that it is a pathetic substitute for the one you were supposed to have gotten…" She trailed off as her voice broke and she cleared her throat. "The honorable thing is that I must fulfill my promise, even if it makes no sense to do so."

She didn't know how long she stood over Aurora's face, just hovering there, just looking, just breathing, just hesitating. It felt like forever. Then, slowly, hesitantly, her head lowered, and her lips gently brushed against the princess's.

A burst of energy that zinged past Mulan's nose and lips, burst out from the kiss, as if it was the epicenter, spreading out swiftly, roaring like a noisy breeze. Mulan jumped back from the bier, afraid.

There was a flicker of movement from Aurora. Her eyelids twitched, and then her eyes shot open as she drew in a breath with a gasp. Her blue eyes looked around, quickly, searching for Phillip. She turned her head to one side, then the other, and then she caught sight Mulan, who was blushing furiously and staring at her as though she was a demonic apparition.

Slowly, Aurora sat up, but her gaze never broke from Mulan's form.

"Who are you?" she asked slowly.

Mulan could not speak. Her mouth wouldn't open for her. She blinked wordlessly at the princess.

"Are you a mute?" Aurora asked, not unkindly. "Is there someone here who I can speak to?"

"I can speak," said Mulan, still trying to process what was happening. "I'm so sorry, Your Highness." Immediately she bowed down on one knee, bowing her head as well.

Aurora's eyebrows perfectly conveyed her confusion. "Who are you? Where is Phillip?"

Mulan felt guilt sweep through her. "He is dead, Your Majesty. He—" She took a breath. "He is lying at your feet."

Aurora's face transformed from confused to horrified. "What? What do you mean?"

"He was wounded by these thorns that have surrounded your castle. We did not know he was poisoned until we reached you. By then—it was too late." The memory of his death, still so fresh, made Mulan's eyes swim with tears.

"Please, help me down. I must see him," said Aurora, softly. Mulan got up swiftly and walked up to the bier, holding out her leather gloved hand for the princess. Aurora took Mulan's hand and slid her legs over the side before sliding off of the polished marble. Mulan steadied her when she wobbled a little, but she straightened, and then walked to the end of the marble table where she had lain. There, his skin a pale green, she saw her Prince, the skin around the bandage a mottled moss-green, the bandage blackened by the wound.

She covered her mouth with one hand and reached out to steady herself on the stone table that had been her funeral bier.

"Why did he awaken me?" Her voice caught as she turned to look painfully at Mulan, who grimaced.

"He didn't." Her brown eyes dropped shamefully to the stone floor. "I did."

"You—but—how can that be?" stammered Aurora. "I've never met you before in my life. Phillip—I knew Phillip. How can this be?" she repeated, turning away from Mulan to stare in horrified anguish at her fallen Prince.

"He made me swear that I would protect you," offered Mulan in her guilt-ridden voice. "He told me to kiss you in his stead, as a mere token. Neither of us thought it would actually _do_ anything." Mulan felt like she needed to defend herself to Aurora, when never before had she ever felt that way to anyone.

"Well, it has." Aurora's voice sounded almost stern. "And now I am awake while he is dead." She wrapped her arms around herself and turned away from Mulan.

"I wouldn't have kissed you if I had known it would work," said Mulan, feeling hurt, but sounding honest. "I wouldn't have awoken you to this."

"Please. Let me just be with him?" asked Aurora quietly.

Mulan clenched her mouth shut and walked swiftly out of the hole she had carved, running down the dais steps and across half of the great hall before she stopped.

Aurora's keening cry echoed faintly through the thorns that surrounded her living tomb. Mulan bit her lip and started to cry silently with her.


	3. Chapter 3

Mulan let Aurora mourn for the space of an hour and more, before walking back across the great hall's marbled stone floor and up the dais steps. She ducked slightly as she passed through the hole in the thorny vines. When she straightened up, she saw Aurora kneeling with Phillip's head in her lap, her hands gently steadying it on each side, and droplets of her tears on his face.

She looked up at Mulan, her eyes full of pain. "Thank you, for letting me mourn him in peace," she whispered gratefully. Mulan nodded awkwardly, her hand resting on the pommel of her sword.

"Of course," she said very quietly in return.

There was a long silence as Aurora looked at Mulan, studying her, trying to figure out what part she had to play in being there at all. In her eyes there came a glimmer of suspicion and perhaps even jealousy. "You never did tell me who you are," she said.

"I fought alongside Phillip to help him fulfill his quest to free you," said Mulan. "He was a great friend, and he loved you very much." At this, the suspicion left Aurora's eyes and she nodded, smiling sadly down at her fallen Prince, stroking a curl of his reddish-brown hair from his forehead.

"I loved him very much in return." A tear spilled down her cheek and she wiped at it quickly. Mulan guessed that the princess didn't want to seem weak before her, and smiled sadly to herself. _I don't think you're weak. I think what I did was unjust and unkind, and I wish I could take it back_.

Mulan looked away. Aurora's voice made her gaze return after a few minutes.

"Only True Love's kiss can break that curse." Aurora's voice was thoughtful. "Or it was supposed to." Mulan's face began to burn at the veiled accusation.

"Princess—" she began.

"Aurora." The princess corrected her, but not sternly or unkindly. Her blue eyes were closely watching Mulan's face, and the warrior could feel her words slipping away.

"I don't think either of us have an explanation," said Aurora after a few minutes of awkward silence. "And perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps the reason is that you were kissing me for Phillip's sake. Maybe the curse accepts stand-ins."

Mulan shrugged, and Aurora let a small smile cross her face, before looking down at Phillip and stroking his pale green cheek.

"Will you help me lift him up where I was?" she asked, still looking down at his peaceful expression. "I think it's the right place for him."

It was not difficult for Mulan to lift Phillip up onto the stone slab with Aurora's help. When he was fully on the bier, they adjusted his limbs and his head until it looked like he had crawled up there himself and fallen asleep on his back, his hands resting on his stomach.

Mulan could not help feeling regret again, as she looked down at her friend.

"It should have been me," she said quietly, her eyes locked on his face. Aurora reached over and gently grasped Mulan's hand, squeezing it.

"You can't let misplaced guilt rule over you for the rest of your life," she said sadly.

Mulan took her hand from Aurora's. "My guilt is properly where it should be," she said, sounding more angry than she meant to. "If I had been the one to start cutting the vines, if I had reached the castle before he had, he might still be alive." Her face was clouded. "If I hadn't listened to him, I would be guarding your bodies instead of waking you up to such grief."

"And I would still be without him, because he would be dead, and I would only be under a curse. He would go to the afterlife, and I would remain trapped in that sleeping hell for eternity." Aurora's face had grown strong while she said this, her eyes not on Phillip, but on the grieving warrior beside her. "I don't know how or why it worked, but I'm glad that I am awake. Even if I awoke to my dead beloved."

Her words did not console Mulan.

"You were in love with him, weren't you?" asked Aurora softly. Mulan's jaw twitched.

"Don't say such ridiculous things. Of course I'm not. He was a friend, nothing more."

"I know love when I see it," Aurora said sagely. "Maybe you won't admit it to yourself, but you loved him in your own way." Mulan's reply was to turn suddenly and duck out of the hole to march down the dais steps.

"Wait, warrior!" Aurora's voice called to her, and she stopped short as dainty footsteps chased after her. "Don't leave me here."

Mulan glanced at Aurora over her shoulder and the princess's anxious expression pained her. "I won't leave you," she said gruffly. "And my name is Mulan."

_swswswswswswsw_

Granny's was crowded at this time of day, every day. Ruby hurried about the tables, her short shorts showing a little too much as she bent over each table to bus it. She didn't mind the looks she acquired and always gave a toothy grin to whomever she caught staring.

Maggie was sitting in a booth by herself, anxiously waiting for Rose to show up. She had finished garbage collecting in the early morning, and had gone down one street with the cleaner by the time her shift was over. Now, at eleven o'clock in the morning, she was done with work. Like every day. She preferred her early morning shift. Her odd schedule usually kept her out of sight of the rest of the town, and she liked it that way. Working and her haunt at The Rabbit Hole were the places Maggie was content to be. It was not often she found herself inside Granny's, awkwardly staring around at everyone, hopelessly lost with the menu.

Ruby slid into the booth across from her, a flirtatious grin on her face.

"Hey there stranger. I almost forgot you lived in Storybrooke." Her inviting smile made Maggie shake her head slightly with her own forming grin.

"Yes, well…"

The waitress leaned toward Maggie conspiratorially. "Are you meeting someone? The last time you were in here it was to see me." She gave a small giggle as Maggie began to turn red.

"Hello Ruby." Rose was suddenly standing at the end of the table. Her tone was clipped. "Could I get an iced tea and a menu please?"

Ruby chuckled. "Of course, ice princess, anything for you." She got up quickly and ran off to get the iced tea.

Rose took her place, sliding in behind the table. She set her hands in her lap and gave an awkward smile to Maggie, who smiled half-heartedly in return, nervous that Rose had just witnessed an embarrassing exchange.

"I don't come here to see Ruby," she said a little defensively, which made Rose's smile deepen and her cheeks color a little.

"I didn't think you did. You're always in the bar." She didn't add the "to see me," but it was heavily implied. Her blue eyes were playful and Maggie felt her heart almost stop beating. Rose blushed at little at Maggie's shocked expression. "Am I wrong?"

Maggie cleared her throat, her eyes darting down to the menu before her as she fidgeted beneath the table with her hands. "No," she said quietly, blushing further. Rose's heart hammered as she beamed affectionately at her friend.

Ruby interrupted this awkward moment as she set the iced tea and a menu down in front of Rose. "Well, Magsie, know what you want?"

Maggie looked up, regaining some of her dignity and composure. "Two coffees. One with cream—" she glanced at Rose, who smiled in reply to Maggie's gaze, and then finished her sentence.

"Cream and sugar for me, please."

Ruby gathered up the menus and winked at the both of them, then hurried off to get their coffee. Maggie cleared her throat a little more awkwardly than she would have liked.

"So. It's kind of weird not being in the bar," she said, trying to be funny. Rose's affectionate gaze was throwing her off.

"It is a little strange," she agreed kindly. "But if it makes you feel better, we can pretend I'm behind the bar." At some point her hands had made it to the table. Maggie tried to think of when that was, but couldn't place it. And for some reason, that made her nervous. Were hands on the table a thing? Was she supposed to put her hands on the table too?

Rose's smile faltered. "I was just teasing." Maggie realized her face must be saying something uncomfortable and tried to rearrange it into a more pleasant emotion.

"No, I'm sorry, I just thought of something."

"Oh," Rose's expression fell even more. "Do you have to go?" She withdrew her hands from the table as she leaned back against the booth seat. Maggie realized what she had done, and leaned toward Rose, reaching out with one hand across the table.

"What? No, no. No I—" She mentally slapped herself._ Way to go, idiot._ "Rose." She waited until Rose's clear blue eyes locked with hers, fully aware that her reaching hand looked ridiculous. She pulled it back, but stared into Rose's beautiful face. "I wasn't making an excuse to leave. I honestly let my mind wander, and I'm not very good at masking my face. I promise, you haven't done anything. Honestly…" she paused. "Honestly, I've wanted to ask you out for a long time, I just never thought you would say yes."

Rose's eyebrows raised, intrigue and surprise in her eyes. "Of course I would have!"

"I didn't know that. You're so—"

"Unapproachable?" worried Rose.

"—unattainable," corrected Maggie. "I thought a beautiful woman like you would already have someone and even if you didn't, you could have any man in this town that you like in an instant." She blushed and looked down. "Even Ruby couldn't possibly say no if you asked her."

Rose laughed. "Ruby. I think she has her eye more on you than on me." She smiled kindly and reached tentatively across the table, carefully touching Maggie's hand. "I have always wanted to get to know you, Maggie. I feel like I know you somehow."

Maggie grinned. "You do know me. I'm at the bar every day."

Rose tried to swat her, but Maggie moved back, her smile teasing. Rose giggled. "You know what I mean."

Maggie's teasing smile turned more sincere. "Yes, I do."


End file.
